PRIMARY STRATIFIED ROCKS. 63 
with the hypothesis which forms part of the 
theory of gradual refrigeration ; viz. that the 
waters of the first formed oceans were too much 
heated to have been habitable by any kind of 
organic beings."* 
In these most ancient conditions, both of 
land and water, Geology refers us to a state 
of things incompatible with the existence of 
animal and vegetable life ; and thus on the evi- 
dence of natural phenomena, establishes the 
important fact that we find a starting point, 
on this side of which all forms, both of animal 
and vegetable beings, must have had a be- 
ginning. 
As, in the consideration of other strata, we 
find abundant evidence in the presence of or- 
ganic remains, in proof of the exercise of 
creative power, and wisdom, and goodness, 
attending the progress of life, through all 
its stages of advancement upon the surface of 
the globe ; so, from the absence of organic re- 
mains in the primary strata, we may derive 
an important argument, showing that there was 
a point of time in the history of our planet, 
(which no other researches but those of geology 
can possibly approach,) antecedent to the be- 
ginning of either animal or vegetable life. This 
* So long as the temperature of the earth continued intensely 
high, water could have existed only in the state of steam or va- 
pour, floating in the atmosphere around the incandescent surface. 
